Engineers warn: Two US nuclear plants may cause new Fukushima

Nuclear engineers have warned the Senate of the threats facing two US nuclear power facilities, which could result in enormous explosions or a Fukushima-like meltdown if natural phenomena or weather conditions cause the facilities to fail.

­Senator Joe Lieberman is the current chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Government Affairs, but will retire in 2013. Two nuclear engineers have asked him to spend his last days in Congress investigating the threats posed by two nuclear power facilities.

Paul Blanch, a retired nuclear engineer who used to work at the Indian Point nuclear facility in Buchanan, N.Y., and Lawrence Criscione, a risk engineer at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) headquarters, sent a letter to the senator, warning that a Fukushima-like meltdown is in America’s future if no action is taken to improve the facilities at Indian Point and Oconee.

The engineers claim that the gas lines leading to the facilities, as well as nearby dams, are vulnerable to sabotage. Engineering failures or natural phenomena like earthquakes or floods can also cause a meltdown.

The Oconee Nuclear Station in South Caroline is protected by a 5-foot wall, but is located near a dam that could result in floodwaters as high as 16.8 feet and cause a meltdown that resembled what happened in Fukushima.

Probably about 1/2 of the US Nuclear Power Plants have MAJOR Siting Issues or lack of ability to withstand easily foreseeable Water Intrusion.

Why the NRC keeps relicensing those "AT RISK" plants totally boggles my mind. They should be allowed to have their licenses expire and have their fuel pools cleared with the fuel placed in casks in more Stable AND Safe locations.

Sheesh ... engineers can be such idiots at times. They can't see the forest for the blinders that they wear. All they can see is one tree ahead, never the cliff coming up.